Stacey and Baylee were still here for breakfast having spent the night last night so I made some delicious blueberry muffins from scratch. There was a moment when I couldn't find the honey and thought all was lost, but darling Ed found it right under my nose. :-)

Just after Baylee left, Joey had something of a meltdown. She has a tendency to do that when she has spent a long time with Baylee. It's not really Joey's fault--Baylee has a tendency to do things that she knows will get Joey's goat and Joey never fails to oblige with a big reaction. I scolded them both for doing that (I get just as mad at Joey for letting it get to her as I do at Baylee for doing it in the first place.) So anyway, Baylee goes home and Joey needs to purge some of that frustration so she starts looking for things to be upset about. This time it was missing Slurpee Saturday, which is a Daddy-Daughter tradition that got overlooked yesterday. She started to get unreasonable and cry so I suggested that we try some of the techniques we learned in therapy for dealing with frustration and disappointment. I suggested a few things and finally she settled on drawing her frustration. I got the stuff for her and she started out drawing a mad picture then ditched that idea and decided to trace some birds from a coloring book she has and then color them to make a poster for her wall. She asked me to put in her Black and Blue Backstreet Boys CD on. As I was walking out of her room, she said "Mom, I feel better now."

Whoa! This has never happened. She has the worst frustration coping ability and often falls to pieces when faced with frustration or disappointment. But this technique worked. Within 3 minutes, the fit was over and she was ok. I wanted to cry, I was so happy! She drew pictures and wrote stories for 2 hours after that, until it was time to get ready for church.

Just when it was time to get ready for church, Ed got paged and had to dial in to work and put some kind of fire out so Joey and I went to church alone with Grandma. I hate to go to church without him--it's so lonely.

Tonight we had a fun new dinner adventure. I used my pasta machine for the first time. I made the dough from scratch (though my eggs broke through the flour well and Ed had to help me out to keep the eggs from falling onto the floor!) In spite of my near egg disaster, I got the dough made and it turned out good. After it rested about 30 mins, we set up the machine and had Family Pasta Making Time. Joey turned the crank, Ed fed the dough though and I caught it on the other side, floured it and passed it back over to Ed. We made spaghetti. Joey loved being able to help and did a right fine job of turning the crank for us. I don't know how you'd do that by yourself!

I made my patented green olive pasta sauce for the noodles and it tasted divine! The texture of the pasta was great and the olives were tangy and delicious. The sauce also has olive oil (extra virgin, of course), capers, sliced green olives, garlic, marinara sauce, a few chunks of my own pesto sauce (frozen), chiffonade of basil and pepper. Sometimes I put hot pepper flakes in it, too. Or shrimp. Mmmmm. Tasty stuff. The recipe made a lot so we've got lunch all zipped up for tomorrow. We also had the season's first and tastiest white corn on the cob. Boy was that delicious! I know pasta and corn on the cob is a strange combination but we sure liked it!

This has been a very relaxing day and evening. There is a certain wonderful lull to a Sunday when Monday is off the next day.

I secured our babysitter for the Ashland excursion. Lauren is very excited about it and has a friend all picked out to bring along. I think it will be a nice trip--she's a very nice girl and Joey really likes her. I've known her since she was Joey's age--it's so strange to think of that. I've gotten used to her as a teenager.

I spent a lot of time today working on my novel. I've written about 2500-3000 words in the last 2 days or so. I'm on something of a roll and this story is taking on a shape of its own. As I've been rewriting, the story just stops me and tells me about a new scene that I didn't know I needed to write. It's been good. I may finish this novel yet! This is what happened to me last spring--just as finals were approaching, I was on a writing spree. Bad timing, to be sure, but I won't let the muse go when she pays me a visit, even if I'm already busy with something else. It will have to wait or figure itself out!

Tomorrow is Kid's Day at the Lobotomy household. We got Joey some K'nex and a DivaStarz doll. Ed and I each got her a gift. She has been counting down the days to Kid's Day ever since Mother's Day. It's pretty cute. You'd think it was her birthday or something. (Well, it's almost like it is, except there's only a family celebration--no party.) I need to wrap her gifts, though, so I'd better go. Ta!

--L